Chris Waddle’s iconic playing career took him from Ton Law Town to Marseille.
The three-time French Division One winner spent three years in the south of France and has fabled stories to tell of his European Cup journey with Les Phoceens.
But what sticks in his mind most is a coming together with two of the game’s greatest ever defensive duo, with the Felling-born icon left hospitalised after a match against none other than Franco Baresi and Paolo Maldini.
Chris Waddle recalls the time Baresi and Maldini left him battered and bruised
During Marseille’s run to the European Cup final in the early 1990s, Waddle faced arguably one of football’s most ferocious defensive partnerships, and it is an occasion that sticks long in the memory for the former Sheffield Wednesday man.
Battered and bruised, the first leg of their semi-final, which Milan won 1-0, lives long in the memory, but the now 64-year-old recalls something quite particular about how the Italian pair stood up to his attacking talents.
“What happened was we drew 1-1 in San Siro and beat them 1-0 at the Velodrome,” Waddle began when speaking on behalf of yaysweepstakes.com. “During the game in France, him and Franco Baresi, every time I went to head the ball, they put an elbow in the back of my head, and basically knocked me out.
“I played for 75 minutes with a bottle of smelling salts in my hand. I had to keep sniffing it because I was all over this place. I finished the match, and Gazza and I went to eat at a restaurant at the stadium, as he was visiting me.
“We’d eat at the stadium restaurant and have a couple of beers. Then I was sitting on a wall talking to Gazza, and I just fell off the wall, fell backwards, and I just had a week in hospital. That was because of Maldini and Baresi.
“I had a week in hospital and I couldn’t play for 10 days. Maldini was a nice bloke, as was Baresi, but when they were on the pitch, they knew how to stop players playing.
Waddle would return to England with a four-year stint at Sheffield Wednesday in 1992, and still looks back on his time with the Owls as one of the best spells of his career.
He retired properly in 2023, after playing for Hallam across two stints in 2013 and 2023. The former forward is still seen as one of the greatest of his generation.
